Tuesday, May 23, 2017

To Waterslide or Not to Waterslide?

I love waterparks…Well at least I used to. 

I am not sure if I really love them for myself anymore.  I love to go to them and take the kids and watch them have fun, but for the last ten years I have either been pregnant or taking care of little kids.  We have been to lots of water parks, but I have spent lots of time in the kiddie pools making sure little children didn’t drown.

Friday, I am chaperoning Charles on a field trip to a water park.  He is nine years old and I am not even sure I am supposed to follow them around the whole time.  This might be the sort of thing where they run around on their own and they just check in with me in between adventures.  This means that I might be wandering around a water park by myself.  I can go on whatever slides I want.  I will be able to nab a tube and go to the deepest part of the wave pool.  I will be able to float around the lazy river lazily, instead of trying to contain someone trying to wiggle away. 

The big question is, what will I WANT to do?  Am I just going to sit on a lounge chair and read a book?  Will I fear the big slides now?  I think I will try the big slides no matter what.  I need to make sure I still enjoy them.  I must keep up my reputation as fun mom.  It isn’t enough to just go, I will need to participate in the fun.

I do need to be careful that I don’t repeat the happenings of the last time I went to a water park for myself.  It might not have been the very last time, but it was close.  I had recently moved into my own apartment for the first time.  I was very excited to be living in Waterford because the one thing I knew about Waterford was that they had a waterpark.  I kind of figured that was what Waterford was named after.  At that time in my life, I had a weird habit of buying skimpy bikinis on clearance.  I almost never wore these bikinis, but they were always so pretty at the store that I had to buy them when they only cost five bucks.  


So, since I lived in the city of the water park AND I had a pile of beautiful bikinis, I decided to invite everyone to go to the waterpark with me where I would finally wear one of my beautiful bikinis.  All was well until the inevitable happened.  Whenever you combine water slides and bikinis you know what is going to happen.  There is going to be a wardrobe malfunction at some point.  I was aware that this was a possibility and I was constantly doing boob checks.  The one time I didn’t, was the one time that I was flashing the whole entry pool including my sister’s boyfriend at the time.  It was possibly the most embarrassing moment of my entire life.  You would think that I would notice that I had a boob hanging out, but I didn’t.  I walked almost the entire length of the landing pool before I realized what had happened and put my private part away.
After the waterpark, we all returned to my apartment where we left everyone’s cars.  I never thought that people would go INTO my apartment, but of course everyone wanted to go in and use the bathroom before they drove home.  This exposed another weird habit that I had at the time.  I had a weird habit of every morning leaving my underwear on the floor as I got into the shower.  That is one of the joys of living alone.  You can just leave your clothes where they drop until laundry day.  My guests were treated to quite a collection of undies.  That exposure was not as embarrassing as the first one of the day, but it was like sprinkles on an embarrassment cupcake.

On this trip to the waterpark, I am sure I will embarrass myself and my son, but it WILL NOT be in the same way.  I will wear a modest mom bathing suit and I will probably wear swim shorts over it just to be safe.  I will probably add my sun hat just to be sure I embarrass my son.  Maybe I should throw in a few mom jokes too for good measure.  I think a lot of singing and dancing around the pool will also be in order.  I need to work on my Moana songs since those will be most appropriate.


Do you still love waterparks?  Are you a waterslide person even in your old age?  Do you have any good mom jokes I can use?  Are you going to share your wardrobe malfunction stories or waterpark stories so I don’t feel all alone in my embarrassment?